Entrepreneur uses podcasting to teach success to small businesses

Frank Felker has founded Radio Free Enterprise, an advice Web site devoted to entrepreneurs. His blogs and podcasts, produced out of a tiny basement studio in Springfield, have reached listeners as far away as Pakistan, Malaysia, Morocco and Iran. Recently he began partnering with worldwide networking organization BNI, which will use his studio to do weekly podcasts for its members across 37 countries.

Felker was thrown into the broadcasting world when his former employer, Monarch Title in McLean, allowed him to do a weekend real estate radio show. He turned those broadcasts into archived podcasts in 2006, realizing in the process the potential Internet radio had to reach a large audience.

“The podcasts I do are primarily success-story interviews with successful entrepreneurs,” said Felker, who has talked to everyone from Dell executives to locally based caterers.

One of his interviewees was John Gorman, who runs an Alexandria-based executive training company, largely serving government customers, called Benchmark Training.

Gorman said the podcast allowed him the opportunity to think about what has made his business and others like it successful.

“For me, it’s just been having to be persistent, to stick with your plan,” Gorman said. “I don’t think a lot of businesses fail because they don’t have enough money or don’t have a good product. I think a lot of people have great ideas, but sort of lose faith early on because it takes time.”

Felker, who is also a consultant for the Customer Shop, has seen common themes among the entrepreneurs who have done well, such as having a balance between personal and work priorities and managing other people well. The biggest mistake businesses make, he said, is not knowing how to market themselves.

“For most business owners, marketing is a mystery and sales is a dirty word,” he jokingly said.

melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com